


Super Far

by CN7



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 11:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CN7/pseuds/CN7
Summary: A collection of retellings and biographical memoirs from the Inquisition’s inner circle, beyond the time of Corypheus.





	Super Far

The thudding of hooves shakes the earth beneath Dorian’s chair. It is not so unusual to hear the arrival of Inquisition personnel or merchants on the supply line from Val Royeaux. The Frostback Basin has been a wild place, subjected to raids from the towering trees and vicious wildlife which have left them short on supplies and scouts alike. Normally, there is no need for ceremony—especially at this hour—and Dorian is never so inclined to greet the newcomers at the gate, away from his charge. Except, this time, the horses whiny and knead the ground with an inherited restlessness unbecoming of anyone under Lace Harding’s direction.

The war in Dorian’s aching head ends with an emptiness in his chest and a stitch in his brows as he squeezes the long, lean fingers he promised Sera he would hold whilst she fell into heavy unconsciousness after days awake—for his vow’s sake as much as his own peace of mind. 

Kaaras’ skin is feverish to the touch, he shivers beneath the blankets, and Dorian has never realized just how small the qunari really is. 

Dorian loosens the stiffness in his long legs and the blood prickles back into his feet when he takes a step towards the flap, nodding at Vivienne, who after so many hours sits as stock-still in the candlelight as those human ice sculptures she has such an affinity for.

Wind from the glacial caps surge down the mountains, musing his impeccably quaffed hair, and Dorian is thankful they are not camped amongst the gnarled branches where such a gust might send him tumbling. Even though he has considered a mountaintop fortress home for well over a year, the chill of southern twilight still stings beneath his tunic. He does not believe he will ever adjust to the frostiness of the south. 

Neither, he thinks, will his favorite Antivan.

She slides from her weary mount, travel cloak sweeping behind, without the assistance of her massive Avaar and Qunari companions’ outstretched hands, straight to grounded feet with more agility than he would expect from one who spends so many hours a day cooped up indoors with an endless supply of dignitaries to negotiate between. Her jaw is pressed forward into a resolute pout, and she has exchanged her golden-laced slippers that she tiptoes across Skyhold with for hardy leather boots and gloves.

“The pretty ones: they always underestimate us,” Dorian muses. His throat feels scraped and the sound is hollow in his ears, but upon discovering the dark circles haunting Josephine’s wild eyes, he finds the will to use it again. “You should really sleep, my dear. That’s all he’s been doing.”

At once, she releases her horse’s reins to The Iron Bull—who trudges stiffly across the camp as though bringing his legs closer together would be utter nonsense—and gratefully clings to the back of Dorian’s neck. He is uncertain as to whether she flings herself or collapses into his arms, but he hugs her tightly, pressing his face into her floral, windswept dark hair as best he can. Dorian has seen this incredible woman glare down four decorated chevaliers, chastise one of the most powerful women in the world in public, and tempt death itself so no harm would come to others. 

Josephine Montilyet is brave, and wind-whipped and travel weary, thousands of miles from the warmth and comfort of Antiva City, Dorian decides she is braver than even he.

Now, she trembles, and if Dorian allows himself to ponder the reason Josie shakes so much her knees might buckle and her voice might falter, his own heart will surely break all over again. Dorian does not think he can bear such an experience twice within a matter of days. 

People can apparently die from that sort of thing.

“There, there. Let’s have none of that. You haven’t even seen Kaaras yet,” he chides gently, rubbing his thumbs across her stained, blotchy cheeks where trails of coal have smudged and gathered in pools. “If you start, I’ll start, and we’ll become one big, ugly mess. No one will know what to do with us.”

His victory is small, drawing out only the smallest of upturned lips and a quick kiss on the cheek, but he is glad for it all the same. 

Josephine leans heavily into him when he guides her across the moonlit grass back to the Inquisitor’s tent. Polite as ever, she greets the First Enchanter with a cordial nod. 

One, or both mages have been a constant by the Inquisitor’s side. Neither Dorian, nor Vivienne are specialized in healing magics, but they are the most qualified people—besides the Avaar augur who has been sent daily to aide the man the hold has proclaimed honorary kin—to reach out to spirits of compassion and valor who are more than willing to help keep Adaar’s skin from tearing apart again. 

From opening like a slick oiled sleeve and spilling over with intestines and rivers of a red, foul scent. 

Dorian still feels his friend’s blood thick on his fingertips, the ice a strange chill beneath his heavily soaked knees. He is afraid to breathe in again because the scent of the dragon’s crisp breathe should still linger in the air where it was slain, but it is overpowered by a sickeningly sweet smell that flows like a stream and stings the back of his throat. He hears their companions’ panicked shouts somewhere in the distance overtop Kaaras’ screams, and identifies the array of creative curses that should really one day find their way into a dictionary as Sera’s. 

Sera, whose swollen eyes, throaty sobs, and panicked thrashing to reach Kaaras against Cassandra’s arms still haunts Dorian’s waking hours.

The Inquisitor lies flat on his back. Much like he had after the beast tore into him. Except, the blood and filth have been sponged from his skin, and he rests atop loads of feathered mats and plush furs. A blanket is drawn up to his shoulders to keep him warm when the fever burdens him with chills like it has since this morning.

Josephine wades carefully to her lover’s side, and sinks to her knees at the edge of his mat. In the candlelight, Dorian notices her fingers have been rubbed raw—no doubt from forcefully steering the reins of her horse, and he makes a mental note to check on the delicate beast’s health. Regardless, she gingerly clasps Kaaras’ cheek, smoothing down the restless furrow in his brow. She whispers something Dorian does not quite catch, but the absent agony seems to drain from the vashoth’s puckered expression and out of his huddled shoulders.

“Angel,” a coarse sound alas draws itself from Kaaras’ lips. It maintains the pitiful whimper and groan that has been much of his communicative ability as of late, and the sentiment is heavy and as distressing as it is relieving to hear. 

Such a private term of endearment should turn anyone’s cheeks pink, or at least enable a glib tongue.

Dorian’s heart does not have the will to repress feelings for once and he does not intrude amidst their privacy.

Kaaras frets in a soft, simple tone, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—. I didn’t mean—.”

“Tranquilízate, mí vida. Por favor,” Josephine shushes in words Dorian—even if he cannot understand them—must admit are quite pleasant . . . for something from Antiva. She smooths the bangs from his eyes. “I’m here. You’re here.”

From the corner of his eye, Dorian catches Vivienne tense in her seat, knuckles turning white at the sight of the Inquisitor’s roused state. Dorian half expects a politely tasteless remark to befall them about how it would not do for the Inquisitor’s weakness to become a permanence that will influence his peers’ opinion, or likewise, an implication of a power struggle. Alas, the comment never comes, and the predatory readiness in Vivienne’s posture dissipates into a slump the moment Kaaras settles. The woman who strides across the tent and presses her thumb to the vashoth’s forehead is the least like Madame de Fur as Dorian has come to know her. 

“There, darling,” Vivienne murmurs as a comfortable warmth and the scent of vanilla creep out in every which direction. 

The touch is so simple. So intimate. Impossibly motherly since Dorian knows every nurturing bone in The Iron Lady’s body to be broken. 

Alas . . . .

Vivienne sighs and turns to Josephine, hand still anchored. “It may not ease him enough to sleep, but will provide relative peace.”

“Thank you, Madame Vivienne.”

The Antivan squeezes those healing fingers once before the enchanter nods stiffly and strides outside the tent flap. 

When the lady ambassador pulls the sheet down to examine Kaaras’ wounds, Dorian folds his arms across his chest and toes the ground from guilt knotting his gut. 

At least his have never fallen out of his body.

Kaaras’ chest is bare and unmarred—so unlike the skin beneath the bandages lacing the bottom of his sternum all the way down to the top of his hips. A soft pink stains the outermost white cloths in a thinly spotted, diagonal line, and Dorian is glad to know Kaaras has not bled completely through these linens as well. 

They are, however, damp enough to change again. So Josephine motions for him to deliver fresh garments, fetch the jar of poultice on the table, and gently peels them away. 

Eyes squeezed shut, Kaaras hisses at the tug on his skin, but is too exhausted to truly writhe in protest. He is pitifully obedient as his caretakers set about cleaning the grime from the crimson gash. It does not smell foul, nor ooze with more discoloration than is manageable, so Dorian is satisfied for now. 

Josephine's crestfallen expression—light eyes widely horrified and shoulders slumped—is evident to the contrary. She withdraws when the Inquisitor flinches. “Oh, my love.”

Dorian smirks. “He killed it, you know. Didn’t want to run after it in the first place, the bloody coward, but then he stepped in front of me when the damn beast came too near. Blade up. The idiot hardly ever uses the bottom of his staff—‘Cunning keeps the danger over there, Dorian. Besides, Cassandra likes hitting things.’—, but after it opened him up like a piece of postage . . . . Well, I guess this time was more personal.”

Dorian omits the unholy scream of rage and anguish which echoed from the mage pinned beneath the dragon’s talons. Nor the strength Kaaras summoned, ashen, blood-soaked, and missing half of his robes, to pierce Hakkon’s heart when he lunged. 

It is not Dorian’s place to worry Josephine further with tales of an Avaar god who would have overrun Orlais, or of her lover’s predecessor and the parallels of their lives. Perhaps Kaaras will if—when—he recovers, or the reports will cross the ambassador’s desk. 

“Dragon hunters,” Josephine tuts fondly. She curls flush against Kaaras’ side, careful not to press any weight into his injury. Her hands run unceasingly through Adaar’s hair, and it seems to have placed them both into a sort of trance. “Whether they admit to such things are always so ready to prove their honor.”

“Nah, boss hates slaying dragons. I do it for the thrill, Josie. Sorry I missed it,” Bull’s baritone rumbles from the tent flap. He shifts his weight impatiently and winks at the mage. 

Dorian feels his face flush at the irregular flutter in his chest, and he grows frustrated by his inability to silence the inconvenience. His active mind may be able to justify solitude, or distance for a matter of weeks, but it seems the ache in his chest believes otherwise. Someone . . . Harding, Cassandra, maybe, sent the letters merely two days ago, and here they stand.

The mage does his best to scoff, “Of course you are.”

“I’m surprised there wasn’t any action left when we got here. Josephine had us ride straight for two days, hardly any breaks. Quite the hardass” he says with a smirk. “No wonder Boss keeps her around.”

Josephine’s dark cheeks tinge with embarrassment. “Really, well, we were only in The Emerald Graves. Not as far as Skyhold.”

“Fair enough,” Bull commends with a simple shrug. “That Duke Cyril guy was awfully friendly about us just leaving like that. In my experience not too many nobles take kindly to being snubbed.”

“Duke Cyril understood we had an emergency to attend to,” Josephine insists, though there is a waver in her voice that implies an apt apology note or two will be sent his way. Her eyes are heavy, she presses her forehead to the vashoth’s jaw, and her fingers have a vice grip around his upper arm. As though letting go would mean Kaaras might evaporate from the world. 

“He better,” Bull growls, and Dorian notices the thoughtfulness of his expression has never touched Kaaras. 

Instead, he coaxes Dorian from the tent under the gauze of rest and privacy for the lovebirds who seem dead on their way to dreams in the Fade. When Dorian asks why later, as they curl warmly beneath furs of their own, Bull will rub his back and say, ‘I don’t need to see Boss like that. He’s tough as nails, and I don’t want anything telling me he isn’t. That’s Josie’s job to see stuff like that. Just like it’s my job with you, Kadan.’

———

Kadan. 

Kaffas, what a humiliating, poisonous word. 

Rage bubbles inside him as he cuts down each Qunari in his path and sadistically turns their corpse against their brethren. So selfishly absorbed into the flames of anger, he can feel the spirits’ bitter taunting, clawing. If he sinks further, he can taste something faintly like Orlesian ham.

No. No, that is despair, and it is a dark, empty place with distracting, hollow shrieks that are just as terrifying as the those of the ataashi.

Desire dwells somewhere beyond. He is familiar with his beckon, how easy it is to be seduced by his voice. 

So, for now, Dorian will permit vengeful agitation to steep beneath the surface of his heart, to doubly fuel his desire for victory, for his friend to survive.

To return home to his own heart when Dorian cannot.


End file.
